Maryse Condé receives The New Academy Prize in Literature 2018 at Berns, Stockholm on December 9

Maryse Condé receives The New Academy Prize in Literature 2018 at Berns, Stockholm on December 9

The french language author Maryse Condé from Guadeloupe visits Sweden on December 8–11 to receive The New Academy Prize in Literature 2018.

The official program in Stockholm includes the prize ceremony at Berns on December 9 and a visit to Rinkeby library on December 10, where Condé will meet students in the same arrangement as the Nobel Prize laureate has participated in for thirty years. On the evening of December 10 there will be a film screening and talks on Condés authorship at Bio Capitol.

– This Prize means international recognition. I never dreamed I would reach that stage. I was convinced that my writing could only interest people like me: traumatized by history marginalized because of the small size of their country and belonging to a color that some still despise, Maryse Condé says.

Condé is the grand old lady of Caribbean literature. A magical storyteller with a unique voice. An important explorer of power, gender race and class in the aftermath of colonialism.

Maryse Condé was born in 1937 in Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadelope in the West Indies. She moved to Paris at the age of 16 to study at Sorbonne and has a doctor's degree from there. He research was on stereotype portrayals of individuals of colour in caribean literature. Later she moved to West Africa and worked in Guinea, Ghana and Senegal for more than a decade.
Together with her husband, translator Richard Philcox, Maryse Condé later moved to the US, where, for a couple of decades, she taught at a number of American universities, among them Berkeley, Harvard and Columbia. She taught at the department of french language caribbean literature at Columbia University in New York until 2002. Today she lives with her husband in Gordes, of french Provence.

–I belong to a small island with no say on international issues,Ms. Condé says. Guadeloupe is mentioned only when there is a hurricane, but I have always been convinced we have a wonderful culture fabricated from various influences: Europeans, Africans, Indians, Chinese. Winning this prize would mean that our voice, the voice of the Guadeloupeans, is starting to be heard. It would be the beginning of a true Guadeloupean identity.

She has published some twenty novels, among them: Ségou, Traversée de la mangrove, Desirada, En attendant la montée des eaux, La vie sans fards, Célanire.

Maryse Condé has previously received numerous French awards, among them the Marguerite Yourcenar Prize, Prix de l´Academie francaise and The Legion of Honor.

Official program for Maryse Condés visit to Sweden:

Sunday December 9, 16.00 – 19.00.

Prize Ceremony at Berns – stage performance and prize giving ceremony 17.00–18.00.

Arrangement by The New Academy.

Entry for media from 15.30. Address: Berzelii Park, Stockholm.

For accreditation to prize ceremony and interview requests, contact Ulla Tillgren, ulla.tillgren(at)utillgren.se, +46(0)70-588 08 53.

Monday December 10, 10.00–12.00.

Visit to Rinkeby Library with students from Rinkeby.
Arrangement by Rinkeby Library, Stockholm Public Library and The New Academy
Adress: Skårbygränd 1
For accreditation to Rinkeby Library, contact Erika Wallin phone +46(0)50831184 erika.wallin@stockholm.se

Monday December 10, 18.00–20.00.

Film screening Une voix singulière at Bio Capitol followed by talks on Maryse Condé's authorship.

Panel: Richard Philcox (translator), Dan Israel (publisher), moderator: Yukiko Duke.

Address: S:t Eriksgatan 82, Stockholm.

Arrangement by Institut Francais, Leopard förlag and The New Academy.

For accreditation to Bio Capitol, contact Anna von Scheele phone +46(0)50831184 anna.vonscheele@anicenoise.com

About the prize:

The New Academy Prize in Literature 2018 has an open and democratic format and the laureate is selected in three steps. Initially the Swedish librarians were invited to nominate authors for the prize. Then an open vote was held where the whole world was invited to cast its votes. More than 32 000 people have voted and four finalists, two women and two men were presented. In the final run, an expert jury reviewed the work of the finalists and selected a winner. One of the finalists, Haruki Murakami, withdrew from the prize due to time issues.

The jury's motivation:Maryse Condé is a grand storyteller. Her authorship belongs to world literature. In her work, she describes the ravages of colonialism and the postcolonial chaos in a language which is both precise and overwhelming. The magic the dream and the terror is as also love constantly present. Fiction and reality overlap each other and people live as much in an imagined world with long and complicated traditions as the ongoing present. Respectfully and with humour she narrates the postcolonial insanity disruption and abuse but also human solidarity and warmth The dead live in her stories closely to the living in a multitudinous world where gender race and class are constantly turned over in new constellations.

The New Academy jury has consisted of Lisbet Larsson, professor in literature at Göteborg University, Gunilla Sandin, head of library and previously program director at Göteborg Book Fair, Peter Stenson, editor, critic and translator and Ann Pålsson, independent publisher and president of the jury.

The New Academy was founded when it was declared that the Swedish Academy would not present a Nobel Prize for 2018, to ensure that an international prize in literature will be awarded in 2018.